Hiss Golden Messenger
"Heart Like a Levee"
(Merge (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK))
With each Hiss Golden Messenger release, songwriter M.C. Taylor's music gains more artistic heft. "Heart Like a Levee" is the sixth album the North Carolina singer-guitarist has recorded under the awkward rubric, following 2014's "Lateness of Dancers," which took its name from a Eudora Welty story. Taylor's reedy voice fits into the Dylan-y troubadour tradition, and on the new album, his spiritually seeking, country-leaning Van Morrison- influenced songs are deepened with musical touches _ a backing chorus here, a Hammond B-3 organ there _ drawn from the template of Stax and Muscle Shoals Southern soul.
Taylor began writing the record in response to the conflicted feelings he had in finally having the freedom, at 40, to make music his full-time job, knowing it would mean leaving his family behind for long stretches. The entire record is suffused with that tenderness and anxiety. "Ace of Cups Hung Low Band" thunders and quakes yet makes room for vocals that are whispered in confidence. On "Highland Grace," Taylor's voice is shadowed by a sneaky saxophone in a song that describes personal turmoil while reaching for an exalted state.
_ Dan DeLuca
Alejandro Escovedo
"Burn Something Beautiful"
(Fantasy (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK)(ASTERISK){)
For his new album, Alejandro Escovedo teamed with R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey, who produced the set, play on it, and cowrote all the songs with the venerable Texas rocker. Nevertheless, the results of this full-on collaboration are vintage Escovedo: rocking yet reflective, raw yet beautiful.
"I got the Sunday-morning feeling in the middle of Saturday night," Escovedo sings near the start, vividly encapsulating the tension at the heart of the album. He expresses a weariness with the rock-and-roll life ("I Don't Want to Play Guitar Anymore") and contends at another point that "I've got nothing left to say." The music, however, argues otherwise. With a searing emotional intensity that matches the unvarnished power of the big beat, "Burn Something Beautiful" ultimately exudes a resilient spirit that rages eloquently against any dying of the light.
_ Nick Cristiano
Common
"Black America Again"
(ARTium/Def Jam (ASTERISK)(ASTERISK){)
Rapper-actor-activist Common's original working title was "Common Sense," and his earliest works were jerky and overliteral in their goal to educate and soothe fellow Chicagoans, black Americans, and anyone within earshot struggling against social ills. Years of sonic and lyrical expansion turned him into a funky-but-chic psychedelicist (2008's "Universal Mind Control") and rap-romantic (2011's "The Dreamer/The Believer"), but with 2014's Chi-town-focused "Nobody's Smiling" and this new "Black America Again," stoic sense is back in Common's vibe at the expense of his more idealistic tenderness.
Philadelphia crooner Bilal brings the weird blues, and John Legend and Marsha Ambrosius tow the creamy soul line on "Joy and Peace," "Rain," and "Love Star." These songs are the loveliest moments of R&B-rap that "Black American Again" can muster. (Bilal makes numerous appearances on the album.) Beyond those thunderous tracks, Common pitches himself toward the preachy and the practical on "Little Chicago Boy" and the album's title track, with its unnecessary cameo from Stevie Wonder and its necessary ode to black lives lost throughout the years. Common's words are solid and warranted, but one misses the poetry he once applied to society's good, bad, and ugly.
_ A.D. Amorosi
FOR SALE FRIDAY
Emeli Sande, "Long Live the Angels"; Sleigh Bells, "Jessica Rabbit"; Sting, "57th & 9th"; Tribe Called Quest, "We Got It From Here, Thank You for Your Service"
